Microsoft software, concert tickets, and now porn for your iPod?

Apple has finally found a product, in the iPod, that is an unqualified profit monster. The company is morphing from niche hipster to provider of music to the masses. And as part of the transformation they're making moves that never before seemed possible, like using Intel chips and (horrors!) Microsoft software on their computers. New strategies indicate that Apple is willing to be creative and do some interesting deals, like the one where the Red Hot Chili Peppers are selling advance tickets to their upcoming tour through the iTunes store.

The obvious next step? Porn, says Mark Gilbert (no relation to yours truly). If iPod owners will watch films on their 2.5" screens, surely they'll watch movies of an, umm, more lascivious nature. It's a huge money business; if Apple could get just a sliver of that $20 billion in adult video sales each year, they might continue their finally-respectable growth. But is growth respectable if it's (literally) made on the backs of the naked and promiscuous?

I love profits and all, but for the same reason I wouldn't invest in cigarettes, I'd feel very different about an Apple (fruit of the tree of good and evil) sinking its strategic go-juice into porn. Mark Gilbert doesn't agree, with the (flawed) rationale: "A search on Google Inc. shows a bunch of companies willing to sell the content and software needed to view erotic material on an iPod. Apple may as well grab some of that revenue for itself." With this logic, you could justify anything. I, for one investor, will pass.